Affect, Culture, and Self-Construals
RUNNING HEAD: AFFECT, CULTURE, AND SELF-CONSTRUALS
Feeling Badly Makes Us More Who We Are:
Negative Affect Strengthens Culturally Consistent Self-Construals
Claire Ashton-James
Duke University
William W. Maddux
INSEAD
Adam D. Galinsky
Northwestern University
Tanya L. Chartrand
Duke University
Word count: 3824
Key words: Affect, culture, self-construal, interdependence
Correspondence should be addressed to:
Claire Ashton-James
Fuqua School of Business, Duke University
Box 90120, 1 Towerview Dr,
Durham NC, 27708.
Phone: 919-660-5645
Email: [email protected]
WORD COUNT: 3,990
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Affect, Culture, and Self-Construals
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Abstract
Building off a variety of literatures, three studies explored the hypothesis that negative affect
intensifies the expression of culture-consistent self-construals. Using an implicit measure of
self-construal, Study 1 revealed that Western participants sat farther from a stranger when in a
negative than a positive affective state. Study 2 found that the self-reported self-construals of
Western participants became more independent when experiencing negative affect. Study 3
induced affect implicitly through a facial feedback manipulation and demonstrated that
participants’ cultural background moderated the effect of affect of self-construals: The selfconstruals of Western participants became significantly more independent, but the self-construals
of East Asian participants became significantly more interdependent when experiencing negative
affect. Implications for the interplay between affect, self-construal, and culture are discussed.
Affect, Culture, and Self-Construals
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Feeling badly is no fun. As hedonic beings, humans are highly motivated to avoid and
escape unpleasant affective states, preferring happiness and contentment to sadness, anger or
fear. The discomfort associated with negative mood can affect nearly everything about us,
manifesting itself physically and psychologically. Simply put, negative affect makes our lives
less enjoyable and less rewarding.
Despite the surface unpleasantness of negative affect, there may be a distinct utility
underlying the experience of foul feelings. Researchers have postulated that negative affect can
act as a psychological signal that something is wrong in the individual’s immediate environment
and needs to be attended to so that solutions can be found and the problem fixed (e.g. Schwarz,
1990). In fact, a confluence of theory and empirical data from several different domains of
research point to this same conclusion: Negative affect serves the functional purpose of
motivating individuals to reassess their internal and external environments in order to root out
and correct some salient problem (e.g., Roese, 1997; Schwarz, 1990; Steele, 1988; Tesser, 2000).
For example, one consequence of negative affect is that it triggers counterfactual
thinking, in particular the generation of thoughts of how a situation might have turned out better
(Roese, 1997). These ‘if-only’ thoughts serve a preparative function, helping individuals
ascertain the problem, consider alternative solutions, and establish the means to fix or avoid the
problem in the future (Galinsky, Seiden, Kim, & Medvec, 2002; Markman et al., 1993; Roese,
1997). Negative affect is also used as information to infer our attitudes and beliefs, informing of
us of which objects and people in the environment to avoid (Schwarz, 1990). In addition,
negative affect has been shown to be a common, underlying antecedent to various techniques for
maintaining one’s sense of self-integrity. In a recent review, Tesser (2000) concluded that self-
Affect, Culture, and Self-Construals
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esteem maintenance mechanisms such as self-affirmation (Steele 1988), downward social
comparisons (Tesser, 1988), and dissonance-induced attitude change (Steele & Liu, 1983) are
relatively interchangeable in their ability to reaffirm the integrity of the self, but that all are
triggered by negative affect regarding the self, which leads to behaviors that repair affect and
eventually make the sense of self whole (see also Chartrand, Dalton, Cheng, & Tesser, 2006).
Thus, evidence from a variety of domains suggests that negative affect is an important
psychological cue that motivates individuals to take steps to reaffirm their sense of self-integrity,
motivating individuals to fit in with others and re-connect with the central tendencies of their
most important referents. If this is indeed the case, then negative affect should influence one’s
construal of the self to be more consistent with highly valued norms and to strengthen the
expression of the dominant social influences on the self-concept. One intriguing but untested
implication of this process of reaffirming core aspects of the self under the influence of negative
mood is that culture may determine which self is re-affirmed. Because people derive a sense of
self from the cultures in which they belong (Markus & Kitayama, 1991), and because negative
affect intensifies a re-affirming of the socially embedded aspects of the self, then the experience
of negative affect may also strengthen the expression of culturally consistent self-construals.
Self-construals are essentially the way in which people mentally represent the self.
Extant research has identified at least two primary modes of self-representation: independent and
interdependent (e.g. Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Brewer & Gardner, 1996; Cross & Madsen,
1997). Those individuals who have independent self-construals tend to think of themselves as
autonomous individuals separate from others, and tend to define themselves in terms of their
unique personal traits. On the other hand, individuals with interdependent self-construals are
more likely to think of themselves in the context of the larger social world, tending to define
Affect, Culture, and Self-Construals
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themselves in terms of their group memberships and relationships with others (Brewer &
Gardner, 1996; Cross & Madson, 1997; Markus & Kitayama, 1991). On average, Westerners
and other members of individualistic societies tend to construe themselves as relatively more
independent, whereas East Asians and other individuals from collectivist societies and cultural
backgrounds tend to construe themselves relatively interdependently. Thus, if negative affect
strengthens cultural-consistent self-construals, Westerners should construe themselves as more
independent in a negative affective state compared to when they are in a positive affective state,
whereas East Asians should construe themselves as more interdependent in a negative affective
state rather than in a positive affective state.
Across three studies we tested whether negative affect would lead Westerners to re-affirm
their sense of independence by increasing the proximity between themselves and others (Study
1), and by expressing more independent self-construals (Studies 2 and 3), but lead East Asians to
express their sense of interdependence by reporting more interdependent self-construals (Study
3).
Study 1
Study 1 was designed as an initial test of the hypothesis that negative affect would
strengthen individuals’ culturally-consistent self-construals. In this study we employed an
implicit measure of self-construals that assessed the distance participants sat from a stranger on a
bench (Holland, Roeder, van Baaren, Brandt, & Hannover, 2004). For example, Holland and
colleagues (2004) showed that Western participants primed with an independent self-construal
sat further away from an anticipated other, and those primed with an interdependent selfconstrual sat closer to the anticipated other. Thus, we predicted that participants from a Western
Affect, Culture, and Self-Construals
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culture (one that chronically values independence) would sit further from the confederate
stranger after a negative (rather than a positive) affect manipulation.
Method
Participants and Design. Eighty-nine (51 female, 38 male) Caucasian Australian
undergraduate students from the University of New South Wales volunteered for the study. The
experiment involved a between-subjects design with three conditions: a positive affect condition,
a neutral affect condition, and a negative affect condition.
Procedure. Participants were approached by the experimenter on campus and asked to
participate in a “media survey”. Upon agreeing to volunteer, participants’ were first presented
with 10 positive, 10 neutral, or 10 negative images. Participants were randomly assigned to one
of three affect conditions (positive vs. neutral vs. negative). Positive media images included
Australian athletes winning gold medals at the Olympics, playful kittens, and picturesque
Australian cityscapes. Neutral media images included architectural drawings, the German Prime
Minister, and a picture of the university campus; Negative media images included a spider,
homeless people on city streets, and a soldier mourning over a fatally wounded body in Iraq.
A confederate remained seated on edge of a nearby bench while the experimenter
instructed the participant to look at each of the images presented in the stimulus booklet
carefully, as they would be referred to in a subsequent media survey. When each of the images in
the set had been observed, the experimenter suggested that the participant complete the media
survey at a nearby bench on which the confederate was sitting. The media survey contained
questions regarding how much television participants watched per day, and what newspapers
they read. Participants were also asked how the media images made them feel on three 7-point
bipolar rating scales (positive-negative, sad-happy, good-bad). While the participant completed
Affect, Culture, and Self-Construals
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the media survey, the experimenter surreptitiously counted the number of screws in the bench
(which were 10 cm apart) between the confederate and the participant. The participants were
then debriefed and thanked for their participation.
Results
Manipulation check. The three self-report affect ratings were combined (α = .89) to
form a composite measure of affect, and a one-way ANOVA confirmed that the affect
manipulation was successful, F(2, 84) = 63.26, p < .001, η2p = .607. Participants who received
the neutral media images reported feeling significantly more positively (M = 5.54, SD = 1.31)
than participants who received the negative media images (M = 2.66, SD = 1.77), F(1,55) =
46.46, p < .001,, η2p = .458, and felt significantly more negatively than participants who viewed
the positive media images (M = 7.16, SD = 1.57), F(1,54) = 17.06, p < .001, η2p = .240.
Seating position. A one-way ANOVA with experimental condition as our independent
variable and seating distance as our dependent variable revealed that seating distance
significantly varied by affect condition, F(2, 83) = 4.125, p < .02, η2p = .09. Mean comparisons
indicated that participants in the negative affect condition sat farther away from the confederate
than did participants in the positive affect condition, F(1,62) = 8.12, p = .006, η2p = .117, though
the seating distance for participants in the neutral condition did not significantly differ from
either the positive or negative condition. However, a significant linear trend analysis, F(1, 83) =
8.23, p = .005, indicated that seating distance was greatest in the negative affect condition (M =
121.21cm; SD = 27.12), followed by seating distance in the neutral affect condition (M = 110.00
cm; SD = 27.39), with seating distance being closest in the positive affect condition (M = 101.00
cm; SD = 29.16).
Study 2
Affect, Culture, and Self-Construals
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The results of Study 1 indicate that affect can indeed impact self-construals. Negative
affect was associated with greater seating distance from confederates, a result consistent with our
central hypothesis that negative affect increases culture-consistent self construals. That is,
individuals from a Western cultural background (i.e. those who tend to have chronic independent
self-construals) reasserted or reaffirmed the core aspect of the self – independence – by sitting
further from others. However, although physical distance from others is certainly facilitated by
and hence is an indicator of an independent self-construal, it could also be indicative of an
avoidance motivation (Carver & Scheier, 1990). Thus, one alternative explanation for results
from Study 1 is that participants’ affective state influenced physical distance not because of selfconstruals, but because of increased avoidance motivation.
In Study 2, therefore, we used an alternative and explicit measure of self-construal, the
Twenty Statements Test (TST: Kuhn & McPartland, 1954). Using this method, participants are
presented an open-ended probe question, “Who am I?,” to which they respond 20 times with
reference to themselves (e.g. Cousins, 1989; Gardner, Gabriel, & Lee, 1999). This measure of
self-construal is more direct and straightforward than the implicit measure in Study 1. We
predicted that the proportion of independent self-statements relative to interdependent selfstatements would be greater for Western individuals who were experiencing negative affect
compared to those experiencing positive affect.
Method
Participants and design. Ninety-four Caucasian Australian undergraduate students (37
male, 57 female) from the University of New South Wales were approached on campus to
participate in the study voluntarily. The experiment involved a between-subjects design with two
conditions: a positive affect condition and a negative affect condition.
Affect, Culture, and Self-Construals
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Procedure. Students were approached by two research assistants (one male, one female)
and asked to volunteer their participation in two independent research projects – one for each
research assistant. After providing consent to participate, one of the research assistants instructed
participants to look at each picture in the booklet and record their familiarity with each media
image on the answer sheet provided. The images used in this study were the same as those
described in Study 1.
The Twenty Statements Test (TST: Kuhn & McPartland, 1954) was then given to the
participant upon completion of the affect induction procedure by the second experimenter as an
ostensibly unrelated study. Participants were instructed to list 20 statements that defined
themselves, each statement beginning with the words “I am” followed by a space to complete the
sentence. Upon completion of the TST students were queried about their affective state as in
Study 1, then debriefed and thanked for their participation.
Following Gardner et al. (1999), participants’ responses on the TST were coded by two
raters as independent if they described a personal attribute (trait, ability, physical descriptor, or
attitude: e.g. “I am intelligent”; “I am athletic”), and as interdependent if they described a social
role or relationship (“I am a team captain”; “I am a sister”). All responses could be coded as
either independent or interdependent. Interrater reliability was high (α = .91) for the coding of
self-construals.
Results
Manipulation check. Results from the manipulation check indicated that participants who
viewed the negative images experienced significantly more negative affect (M = 2.08, SD = 1.86)
than those who perused the positive images (M = 7.13, SD = 2.09), t(89) = 14.34, p < .001.
Affect, Culture, and Self-Construals
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TST. A one-way ANOVA with self-construal as our dependent measure and independent
self-construals listed as our independent measure revealed that, as expected, participants in the
negative affect condition reported more independent self-construals (M = 16.55; SD = 3.54) than
participants in the positive affective condition (M = 15.06; SD = 3.89), F(1,93) = 3.72, p = .05,
η2p = .039.1 These results provide additional support, on an explicit rather than implicit measure
of self-construal, for the notion that affective states do indeed influence self-construal in a
culturally consistent manner.
Study 3
Although Studies 1 and 2 provide initial support for the notion that negative affect
strengthens culturally-consistent self construals, in these studies there was little cultural variation
in the backgrounds of participants, all of whom were Caucasian individuals of Australian
nationality. One alternative explanation for results from Study 1 and 2 is that negative affect
makes all individuals more independent, regardless of culture. Therefore in Study 3 we included
participants from East Asian cultural backgrounds as well as participants from Western cultural
backgrounds. If negative affect does in fact strengthen culturally-consistent self construals, then
negative affect should increase the expression of interdependent self-construals for East Asians,
rather than independent self-construals, since research has demonstrated that East Asians tend to
have a chronic interdependent self-construal (Markus & Kitayama, 1991).
In order to demonstrate the generalizability of our findings, Study 3 also employed an
alternative affect induction procedure to induce positive and negative affect autonomically, one
that was less intrusive and explicit than the picture viewing task used previously. This procedure
involved a facial feedback manipulation that has been shown to induce positive or negative affect
in a reliable but unobtrusive manner (Strack, Martin, & Stepper,1988).
Affect, Culture, and Self-Construals
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Method
Participants and design. Ninety-one undergraduate students (44 female, 47 male)
from Duke University were paid $7 for their participation. Sixty-six percent of participants in
Study 3 (n = 60) identified themselves as being from a Western cultural background (e.g.,
Caucasian American, African American, and Western European students), whereas 34% (n = 31)
of the sample identified themselves as being from an East Asian cultural background (e.g.,
Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese).2 The experiment involved a between-subjects design
with two conditions: a positive affect condition and a negative affect condition.
Procedure. Following Strack et al. (1988), participants were told that they would be
participating in a study on “psychomotoric coordination”. Participants were randomly assigned
to a feedback condition (positive or negative) and asked to hold the chopstick between their teeth
or lips while they completed the Twenty Statements Test (TST: Kuhn & McPartland, 1954). In
the positive affect condition participants were instructed to hold the pen in their teeth, which
activates the zygomatic muscles involved in smiling. In the negative affect condition participants
were instructed to hold the pen between their lips, which activates the corrugator facial muscles
associated with frowning. After completing the TST, participants reported their gender and
cultural background and were then debriefed and paid for their participation.
Participants’ responses on the TST were coded as independent or interdependent in the
same manner as Study 1 and 2, and reliability was again acceptable (α = .79).
Results
Effects of affect on culture on TST. We conducted an omnibus, 2 (Facial Feedback:
positive vs. negative) x 2 (Culture: Western vs. Eastern) x 2 (Self-Construal Type: independent
vs. interdependent) mixed-model ANOVA, with condition and culture as between-subjects
Affect, Culture, and Self-Construals
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factors, and self-construal as a within-subjects factor. Results indicated a significant main effect
for self-construal, F(1, 87) = 170.23, p < .001, a marginal main effect for condition, F(1, 87) =
3.84, p = .053, and a significant 2-way interaction between condition and culture, F(1, 87) =
6.18, p = .015. However, these lower-order effects were qualified by a significant 3-way
interaction between condition, culture, and type of self-construals, F(1, 87) = 14.48, p < .001, η2p
= .143, indicating that participants’ cultural background moderated the effect of affect on selfconstruals.
To test the current hypothesis, we then proceeded to examine the two-way, affect x
self-construal interactions separately for participants from Western cultural backgrounds, and
participants from East Asian cultural backgrounds. We predicted that both interactions would be
significant (i.e. affect would have a significant impact on self-construals for both samples), but
that the pattern would differ depending on participants’ cultural background. We expected mean
comparisons to show that Westerners listed more independent self-construals in the negative
versus positive affect condition, but we expected that East Asian individuals would list more
interdependent self-construals in the negative versus positive affect condition.
Results supported this hypothesis. For Western participants, the 2-way affect x selfconstrual interaction was indeed significant, F(1, 58) = 4.77, p = .033, η2p = .076. Mean
comparisons indicated that, as predicated and consistent with results from Study 1 and 2,
Western participants in a negative affective state listed a greater number of independent
statements (M = 16.13; SD = 3.06) compared to those in a positive affective state (M = 14.38, SD
= 3.03), F(1,59) = 4.70, p = .034, η2p = .114.
Regarding East Asian participants, the 2-way affect x self-construal interaction was
also significant, F(1, 29) = 8.78, p = .006, η2p = .232. However, contrary to the results from
Affect, Culture, and Self-Construals
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Western participants, but consistent with predictions, East Asian participants in a negative
affective state expressed significantly more interdependent self-construals in a negative affective
state (M = 7.68; SD 3.25) than East Asian participants in a positive affective state (M = 4.68, SD
= 3.91), F(1, 29) = 7.70, p = .010, η2p = .210 (see Figure 1).3 Thus, negative affect exacerbated
culturally-consistent self-construals, with self-construals of Westerners becoming more
independent, and self-construals of East Asians becoming more interdependent in a negative
(versus positive) affective state.
General Discussion
When someone feels badly, s/he often says “I’m not myself today.” Results from the
present research suggest that although such a statement may indeed be correct at some level, it is
also likely to be followed by cognitions and behaviors that allow one to reaffirm one’s sense of
self by re-articulating who one is at his/her core. Our results indicate that this re-affirmation of
self triggered by negative affect occurs in a manner consistent with one’s cultural norm. Study 1
and Study 2 revealed that participants from an individualistic culture construed themselves as
more independent when in a negative affective state as compared to when they were in a positive
affective state. These results emerged on both behavioral and cognitive measures of selfconstrual. Study 3 demonstrated that participants’ cultural background moderated this effect,
with self-construals of Western participants becoming more independent when experiencing
negative affect, but with the self-construals of East Asian participants becoming more
interdependent. Thus, taken as a whole our results are consistent with the idea that negative
affect strengthens culturally-consistent self-construals.
The current results are highly consistent with previous work showing the functional
utility of negative affect as a trigger to reassess and reaffirm one’s environment and one’s sense
Affect, Culture, and Self-Construals
14
of self (e.g. Roese, 1997; Steele 1988; Strack, 1990; Tesser 1988, 2000). However, these studies
go beyond previous research by demonstrating for the first time how differential affective states
alter individuals’ working self-concepts. In the present research negative affect triggered selfconstruals that were more consistent with the cultural norm. This effect seems to indicate that
individuals feeling badly are trying to take steps to fit in with the self-related values that are
chronically accessible to them, such as those ingrained by their cultural upbringing, an effect
consistent with research on self-esteem as a sociometer-type mechanism (e.g., Baumeister &
Leary, 1995). Thus, one implication of the current findings is that negative affect may also be a
cue that the individual is not fitting in well enough with other individuals and groups that share
their most important values and worldviews.
The current results also connect to other research showing that negative states increase
adherence to and defense of one’s identity and culture. For example, according to terror
management theory (Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski, 1997), individuals cope with the
negative anxiety brought about by awareness of one’s own mortality through connecting to one’s
culture, which provides meaning and a symbolic link to immortality. As a result, mortality
salience leads individuals to defend their cultural worldviews by derogating those who are
different (Rosenblatt et al., 1989) and by identifying more with one’s important reference groups
(Arndt et al., 2002). Overall, negative affect leads people to accentuate differences between
themselves and others both by distancing themselves from different others and also becoming
closer to similar others, consistent with the present findings.
It is also interesting that culture not only moderated the current effects, but that
participants’ cultural backgrounds actually reversed the effect of negative affect on selfconstruals; negative affect had the opposite effect on Westerners’ self-construals (which became
Affect, Culture, and Self-Construals
15
more independent) as it did on East Asians’ self-construals (which become more
interdependent). This result suggests that the possibility that negative affect induces not just a
relative difference in self-construals for people with Eastern and Western backgrounds, but
perhaps even fundamentally different types of self-maintenance and re-affirmation processes.
These results not only speak to the differing nature of self-construals across cultures, but also the
dynamic and functional nature of negative affect to influence how we see the world and
ourselves.
Affect, Culture, and Self-Construals
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List of Figures
Figure 1: Self-construals listed (out of a maximum of 20) as a function of experimental condition
and participants’ cultural background, Study 3.
Affect, Culture, and Self-Construals
20
Self-construals listed
20
15
postive affect
10
negative affect
5
0
Western
Independent SC
Western
Interdependent
SC
East Asian
Independent SC
East Asian
Interdependent
SC
Affect, Culture, and Self-Construals
21
Footnotes
Because participants were instructed to list 20 self-relevant statements, an increase in listing
one type of self-construal necessarily produced a corresponding, significant decrease in the other.
Thus, participants in the negative affect condition also listed significantly fewer interdependent
self-construals (M = 3.44) than in the positive affect condition (M = 4.94), F(1,93) = 3.72, p =
.05, η2p = .039.
1
2
Nationalities of participants were not recorded in this study.
As in Study 2, an increase in listing one type of self-construal necessarily produced a decrease
in listing of the other type. Thus, Westerners also listed significantly fewer interdependent selfconstruals in the negative (versus positive) affect condition, {F(1,59) = 4.70, p = .034} whereas
East Asians listed fewer independent self-construals in the negative (versus positive) condition
{F(1,29) = 9.93, p = .004} (see Figure 1.)
3